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" What humility does for one is it reminds us that there are people before me. I have already been paid for. And what I need to do is prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who has yet to come but who may be here and needs me. "

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" One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest. "

Maya Angelou

Practice

Be Kind

Courage

" We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders. "

Maya Angelou

Alone

Ignorance

" I had given up some youth for knowledge, but my gain was more valuable than the loss. "

Maya Angelou

Knowledge

Loss

" Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope. "

" There's something which impels us to show our inner souls. The more courageous we are, the more we succeed in explaining what we know. "

Maya Angelou

Know

Show

" The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are. "

Maya Angelou

You

History

" I think Clinton, after getting into office and into Washington, was shocked at being bludgeoned. So he spent time trying to be all things to all people - one way guaranteed not to be successful or respected in a lion's den. You can't just play around with all those big cats - you've got to take somebody on. "

" For a person who grew up in the '30s and '40s in the segregated South, with so many doors closed without explanation to me, libraries and books said, 'Here I am, read me.' Over time I have learned I am at my best around books. "

Maya Angelou

Said

I Am

" I believe that every person is born with talent. "

" If you're serious, you really understand that it's important that you laugh as much as possible and admit that you're the funniest person you ever met. You have to laugh. Admit that you're funny. Otherwise, you die in solemnity. "

" I find in my poetry and prose the rhythms and imagery of the best - I mean, when I'm at my best - of the good Southern black preachers. The lyricism of the spirituals and the directness of gospel songs and the mystery of blues are in my music or in my poetry and prose, or I missed everything. "

" If I'm the people's poet, then I ought to be in people's hands - and, I hope, in their heart. "

" Nothing succeeds like success. Get a little success, and then just get a little more. "

Maya Angelou

Nothing

Little

" It is a no-fail, incontrovertible reality: If you get, give. If you learn, teach. You can't do anything with that except do it. "

" The first decade of the twentieth century was not a great time to be born black and poor and female in St. Louis, Missouri, but Vivian Baxter was born black and poor, to black and poor parents. Later she would grow up and be called beautiful. As a grown woman she would be known as the butter-colored lady with the blowback hair. "

" How wonderful it is to be an American. We have known the best of times and the worst of times. "

" Courage - you develop courage by doing small things like just as if you wouldn't want to pick up a 100-pound weight without preparing yourself. "

" I am grateful to be a woman. I must have done something great in another life. "

" I'm a religious woman. And I feel I have responsibility. I have no modesty at all. I'm even afraid of it - it's a learned affectation and it's just stuck on me like decals. Now I pray for humility because that comes from inside out. "

" Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean. "

" On Saturday afternoons when all the things are done in the house and there's no real work to be done, I play Bach and Chopin and turn it up real loudly and get a good bottle of chardonnay and sit out on my deck and look out at the garden. "

" Living in a state of terror was new to many white people in America, but black people have been living in a state of terror in this country for more than 400 years. "

" Whenever I want to laugh, I read a wonderful book, 'Children's Letters to God.' You can open it anywhere. One I read recently said, 'Dear God, thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy.' "

" I wasn't a pretty girl. I was six feet tall at 15, you know. "

" I agree with Balzac and 19th-century writers, black and white, who say, 'I write for money.' Yes, I think everybody should be paid handsomely; I insist on it, and I pay people who work for me, or with me, handsomely. "

" Of course, there are those critics - New York critics as a rule - who say, 'Well, Maya Angelou has a new book out and of course it's good but then she's a natural writer.' Those are the ones I want to grab by the throat and wrestle to the floor because it takes me forever to get it to sing. I work at the language. "

Maya Angelou

Work

Book

" Whatever you want to do, if you want to be great at it, you have to love it and be able to make sacrifices for it. "

" Everyone has at least one story, and each of us is funny if we admit it. You have to admit you're the funniest person you've ever heard of. "

" Timidity makes a person modest. It makes him or her say, 'I'm not worthy of being written up in the record of deeds in heaven or on earth.' Timidity keeps people from their good. They are afraid to say, 'Yes, I deserve it.' "

" I'm grateful to intelligent people. That doesn't mean educated. That doesn't mean intellectual. I mean really intelligent. What black old people used to call 'mother wit' means intelligence that you had in your mother's womb. That's what you rely on. You know what's right to do. "